Whew! That was a tough day...

But I loved it. What am I talking about? Last Wednesday I took the day off work (thankfully I'm not crazy busy right now) and did a version of the Cascade Triple Crown. The CTC is an attempt to climb Granite Mountain, Mailbox Peak, and Mt. Si in one day. That equates to about 22 miles of hiking and 11,000 feet of elevation gain. I heard about the CTC from a friend at work who loves to climb, and we decided to go for it to "commemorate" the fact that one of my best friends in Seattle is moving to the East Coast in a few weeks.

We had been advised to do Granite first, Mailbox second, and Si third. The reason for doing it in that order is two-fold. First, that is how the mountains geographically sit east-to-west. It was easier to start farthest east and then progress westward. Second, Granite is fairly challenging, so it was good to start with that one. Mailbox if definitely the most difficult, and Si is the easiest. We wanted to do Si last when we were the most tired.

We met at the trailhead at 5:30AM and started climbing Granite just before 6:00AM. There were four guys in our group, and the other three were definitely all in better shape than me. Granite was a great climb, fairly challenging in parts, but nothing too tough. We took a slight "detour" that we thought would save us some time, but ultimately slowed us down because we were climbing through snow up to our knees. It also got really steep and we didn't have mountaineering gear with us (crampons and ice axe). We did, however, have Yak Trax, and those were really helpful for Granite. If you haven't done this climb and live in the Seattle area, I highly recommend it. Great views from the top and a good trail. It was about 4 miles up and we gained somewhere around 4,000' of elevation.


Here we are at the trailhead getting ready to head out


Two of the guys I climbed with on the way up Granite


This picture does a good job of showing the type of terrain we faced heading up Granite thanks to our "shortcut"


On the climb up Granite Mountain


At the top of Granite


One down, two to go!

Mailbox Peak gains about 4,200' of elevation, but it does it in around 2.5 miles, so you can imagine what the terrain is like: STEEP! The trail heads up and just doesn't level out. My legs felt pretty good after Granite but Mailbox was pretty tough. The other guys powered ahead and reached the summit 5 or 10 minutes before I did, but we all made it.


They aren't joking! Mailbox is very challenging!


Here is the iconic "mailbox" at the summit.


Made it to the top. Looks like I was eating something when this photo was taken.

I was feeling pretty tired heading to Si, but it isn't too bad of a climb. It's about 4 miles up, and also gains around 4,000' of elevation. The first two miles up Si were no problem and I was leading the group at a good pace, but the last two miles of the hike were tough. Part of the reason it was tough was because something I had eaten (probably the energy gels) were not sitting well in my stomach (this is another story in itself - ask me about it sometime). But we made it to the top, and managed to make it back to the cars around 7:30PM, making it about a 13 hour day of climbing.


Here is my buddy signaling to his wife down below. She was able to see us on top from their house!


On top of Si - it was all downhill from here. My smile is a bit deceiving as I was feeling pretty wiped by this point.

Here I am writing this 3 days later, and my legs still don't feel like they've fully recovered. Missi asked me if I had fun, considering the punishment I inflicted on my body, and I can honestly say it was one of the best times I've had in quite awhile. The guys I was with were excellent, I love being in the mountains, the weather was perfect, and I love pushing my body hard. It was a great day!